Dreams After Coercive Control: Reclaiming Self-Trust with Gerette Buglion

Dreams after coercive control can be confusing, intense, and surprisingly healing. In this episode of The Dream Journal, host Katherine Bell speaks with Gerette Buglion about reclaiming self-trust after cultic relationships, narcissistic abuse, manipulation, and other forms of coercive control.

Gerette shares how dream images can become vulnerable places where autonomy is either undermined or restored. Together, Katherine and Gerette explore nightmares, dreams of former abusers or leaders, violent or disturbing imagery, and the tender process of learning to trust your own inner authority again.

The conversation includes a listener dream about two babies, a communal bathroom, and the struggle to release what no longer belongs inside. Through the lens of Katherine’s Experiential Dreamwork and Gerette’s Writing to Reckon practice, the episode looks at privacy, shame, boundaries, inner development, memory rescripting, dream rescripting, and the possibility of asking: “Is there more for me?”

In this episode

• Why the dreamer is the final authority on their own dream

• How dreams can be used either to manipulate or to restore autonomy

• Dreams after cultic abuse, religious trauma, narcissistic abuse, and coercive control

• Self-trust, shame, longing, and tenderness after harmful relationships

• How writing can help survivors reclaim memory, voice, and choice

• Working with disturbing dream imagery without forcing fixed interpretations

• Dream rescripting, memory rescripting, and new possibilities for healing

BIO: Gerette Buglion wants to live in a world where cult leaders, narcissistic abusers, and manipulative marketing techniques are spotted, called out, and silenced, creating more opportunities for nourishing relationships to flourish. Her work as educator centers on liberation from coercive control and supporting the integrative power of writing for survivors of cultic relationships through Writing to Reckon™ programs.